William H. Pratt, aka Boris Karloff.
With Zombies!
Category: Sci-Fi
Where I Have Gone Many Times Before
YouTube once again has me in its grip. This Star Trek thing William Shatner made in 2014 is my latest distraction. It can’t be embedded, but click on “Watch on YouTube” to watch on YouTube.
Mars War!
I’m very impressed with Criterion’s Blu-ray presentation of Paramount’s 2018 restoration of The War of the Worlds, from 1953. The print was created digitally, for perfect alignment of the scans made from the original 3-strip Technicolor negatives.
Paramount’s goal was to recreate the Technicolor experience as much as possible, and I can confirm they succeeded. This Blu-ray really comes alive with a good video projector.
A fascinating and entertaining alternate take on the H.G. Wells classic is the fantasy docudrama, The Great Martian War 1913–1917.
Aww, who needs to worry about a Martian invasion anyway, when we have the pandemic? Or… has it been their plan all along, to weaken us with a virus they’re immune to, avoiding the fate of the Martians at the end of Wells’ book??
Donut Dolly in Worlds War I
For over one hundred years, Donut Dollies have been on the front lines, serving donuts and coffee to the men fighting the enemies of freedom, including Martian invaders!
Chameleon Actor
Stephen Colbert chatted with Robert Duvall recently. Colbert asked Duvall about working with Brando, which is where this clip comes in.
A very different interview with Duvall would focus on his Science Fiction work, including THX-1138.
Years before THX-1138, Duvall appeared in The Twilight Zone. A while ago I watched as many episodes of the original The Outer Limits as I could before it was yanked from Amazon Prime. The series was good at stretching what could have been half-hour episodes into full hours. Duvall worked well with the deliberately slow pacing, as seen in “The Chameleon.”
Square Songs
The extent of my awareness of SpongeBob SquarePants is pretty much limited to knowing what it is. That changed just a bit when I heard this song on one of my favorite SiriusXM shows, Drew Carey’s Friday Night Freak-out.
It sounds like a song-writing collaboration between Brian Wilson and Margo Guryan. That turns out to not be surprising, because the song was written by former Brian Wilson producer Andy Paley.
How about another square song for kids? As featured in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Hmmm… that album cover looks square.